Kop chiefs must avert fourth-coming crisis

THE MOST disturbing aspect of Liverpool's current crisis is the apparent acceptance by the board that being in the bottom half of the table, out of the title race in October and setting the season's target as a fourth-place finish, is somehow OK.

THE MOST disturbing aspect of Liverpool's current crisis is the apparent acceptance by the board that being in the bottom half of the table, out of the title race in October and setting the season's target as a fourth-place finish, is somehow OK.

So thank God that Steven Gerrard had the guts to remind the custodians of England's most successful club of their high standards.

"It's simply not good enough," he said of the shambles at Portsmouth, where gutless players were second to every ball and the coaching staff looked on like clueless zombies. "Liverpool should be challenging for major honours. Nothing else is acceptable."

Now if a Kopite who was still in primary school the last time Liverpool won the league can see that, how come life-long fans in their 50s like chairman David Moores and chief executive Rick Parry aren't also publicly stating that fourth place is an unacceptable ambition?

It's an over-hyped safety-net. A cop-out for under-achievers. A chance to put gloss on failure with no guarantee of making any impression in the Champions League.

When Gerard Houllier took over as joint-manager in July 1998, he said: "Liverpool finished third last season, and that would be considered a good achievement by many. But not by us. We have to improve the team and reach out for top place."

Back then we all knew were we stood. First was first and second was nowhere. It was why Roy Evans held his hands up, said finishing third twice and fourth twice wasn't good enough, and walked. It's unfair to heap all the blame for Liverpool's decline on Gerard Houllier's shoulders.

He is a decent man doing his utmost to turn things round. It is the men above him who are letting the club down.

It is they who should be defining exactly what Houllier needs to deliver and when he needs to deliver it.

It is about the board saying to the current management, if you cannot get this right in your fifth season then at the end of it we will have to try and bring in people who can. It's not cruel, it's not uncommon, it's simply football. Ask Sander Westerveld.

Nobody more than me aches for Houllier to turn things around and get Liverpool back in the title hunt.

But if he can't then the chairman owes it to the fans to sort out this mess. To find out if Houllier's five-year plan to catch up with Manchester United has suddenly become a 10-year plan.

And decide if, in the words of his captain, that is honestly good enough.